9-20-08 Oconee County BOC needs more change than marathon Work Session

Our development economy is not coming back for a while. We have too many houses and “ghost subdivisions”- growing weeds. Why keep approving them? Sooner or later, the prices will come down and tax revenue will be impacted.

AVOC

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September 19, 2008

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Oconee County BOC needs more change than marathon Work Session

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By Wendell Dawson, Editor, AVOC, Inc

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Since the July 15 Primary, many of us have been watching for some changes. It is encouraging that a couple of things have occurred:

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1. The County and Cities met to discuss SPLOST projects; there needs to be more of such collaboration; we did it in the 90’s when we built projects in all the cities;

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2. The Work Session is being held in the county and is publicized and there needs to be more such sessions including SPLOST public hearings.

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Adam Thompson, AB-H, in his BLOGtalks about the work session and has good background information. The Oconee Enterprise had information about the City – County SPLOST meeting.

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A number of policies still need addressing and hopefully they can be discussed in the public work session.

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AVOC suggests some other topics for significant input:

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1. Adopt resolutions changing the method of selecting appointments to the Planning Commission and other county committees. Despite contentions of the incumbent commissioners, most informed citizens know these committees are stacked and many are selected by Chairman Davis, no matter how the name gets publicized. The Board can bring more credibility and real citizen input by appointing people on merit and qualifications in a true open process;

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2. SPLOST PROJECTS need to have a good airing. We are talking about a $ 40 Million SPLOST Referendum and we usually only know bits and pieces. For several years, Mr. Davis & Co has (often secretly) committed us to projects and debt that requires repayment. The projects are then later paid from SPLOST funds. We need an Outline of Proposed Projects for Voters to approve before the vote. We do not need to be approving “big spending” projects retroactively.

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3. SOME SPLOST PROJECTS:The Commissioners need to ‘get on the stick’ and buy available land near the courthousebefore the area is covered with multi-family housing and the Courthouse is FORCED OUT OF TOWN.

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We need to get back to spending SPLOST money on county road maintenance instead of large development promoting projects that just add to the annual budget and operating costs.

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4. SPENDING & TAXES: The commissioners need to wake up to the reality of the Economy. Developers and Banks have felt the strain. State Revenues are down. It is time for some real belt-tightening at the local level. We need to address some personnel issues with attrition. With the slowdown in building, can we not trim the payroll in Code Enforcement and Planning?

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Let’s get details on what the park and jail are really costing – as to construction totals and as to annual budgets. Our development economy is not coming back for a while. We have too many houses and “ghost subdivisions”- growing weeds.Why keep approving them? Sooner or later, the prices will come down and tax revenue will be impacted.

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Taxpayers will not be very patient or tolerant with the Assessors continuing to increase values every year. This is what is fueling the spending! Most of us know our property taxes keep going up in spite of more revenues!

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5. COMMERCIAL & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: It is time to consider slowing down in this area. We have empty office and commercial buildings all over.Do we need more? The market area will only support so much retail. To continue to approve these shopping facilities is feeding traffic problems and negatively impacting existing businesses.

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6. NEW COUNTY ATTORNEY: Our county attorney has become too cozy with the development community and the current chairman. He needs to be replaced with an attorney not from Athens or Oconee County.

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7. PUT A BRIDLE ON THE CHAIRMAN: As county attorney and a commissioner for 26 years, one abiding principle that I sought, protected and adhered to was that a MAJORITY OF COMMISSIONERS CONTROL. This will take some changes in policies and backbone.

Next week’s marathon work session at the Oconee County courthouse will give the part-time members of the Oconee Board of Commissioners a glimpse into Chairman Melvin Davis’ world.

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The agenda for the Sept. 25-26 meeting includes some sort of presentation from nearly every county department, from Animal Control to (Planning and) Zoning -- 21 main items including the IT Department, the Senior Center and Fleet Maintenance. That means Margaret Hale, Chuck Horton and Jim Luke -- who complained during the election about Davis’ kung-fu grip on day-to-day operations and access to department heads –- now will get a shotgun blast of the minutia they've jabbed Davis for managing full-time, despite the county already having a full-time administrative officer.

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There are some other intriguing items, too, like the county's list of priorities to put on the next SPLOST referendum, which is scheduled for March. Commissioners are also planning to discuss space issues in county facilities, which could include more talk of anew county administrative building -- something that's become more of a logistical issue now that they're firing up the metal detectors for regular BOC meetings.

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Hale, Horton and Luke asked for more access to department heads and more heads-up on some things they said they were reading about first in the paper. Did they really want an epic work session with quick-fire presentations from every county department head? ……………

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The agendafor last December's quietly-convened commission retreat at a Madison hotel was a bit more concise. They had to account for travel time, though, I suppose.

8-31-08 Oconee County and City Officials discuss next SPLOST- Need Citizen Input

Last Wednesday was the beginning of a new day and a new dollar for four Oconee County towns and the county government..Not just one dollar, but $ 40 million in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes, if a referendum planned for March 10 is approved by the voters. Earmarked for the towns over a six-year period is $ 5,684,000…………….

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Mayors, attorneys, councilmen and county officials gathered around the long table in the Grand Jury Room. Oconee Commission Chairman Melvin Davis headed the table, welcomed those present, including visitors and had those around the table introduce themselves and then turned the meeting over to Alan Theriault..Oconee’s administrative officer reminded that the mayors had gotten letters and packets outlining the genesis of this, the first sharing of SPLOST with towns and the revenue would be spread over six years..“This was set up by legislation in 2004,” said Theriault..“This will come after intergovernmental agreements with each town and public hearings, probably this late fall and winter, then it will go to the citizens for a vote,” he explained..The apportioning of the money will be made according to population……….Unincorporated Oconee County has 26,229 people for a total population at 29,956, although Davis has pointed out that these figures are from the 2000 census and the population has increased over the past eight years by 3 percent yearly..In any event, Oconee County will receive $ 34/3 million, some of which, it was indicated, will go on debt service for the jail.……………….